The Forgotten Space probes global effects of container traffic

Ten years in making, film among openers at Halifax Independent Filmmakers’ Festival

Forgotten Spaces, by Allan Sekula and Noel Burch, is a look at the system that deliv­ers goods to worldwide markets but that can dehumanize those it employs as well as the consumers it’s designed to benefit.

Every day, mammoth container ships sail in and out of Halifax Harbour, bringing goods from overseas to load onto trains, or exporting Canadian products to other ports of call.

But while the container trade provides jobs locally, on the docks as well as on the railways, along with the goods we buy on a daily basis, what are the long-term global effects of a mode of transport that has allowed the manufacture of those goods to leave North American shores, and what are the human implications for those directly connected to this mode of commerce?

These are some of the questions posed by The Forgotten Space, one of the opening night presentations of this week’s 2012 Halifax Independent Filmmakers’ Festival, screening at Gottingen Street’s Bus Stop Theatre tonight at 9 p.m.

Ten years in the making, the film essay by Allan Sekula and Noel Burch is a visually striking look at the system that delivers goods to worldwide markets, a system that is gradually dehumanizing those it employs as well as the consumers it’s designed to benefit.

Sekula, a Los Angeles-based photographer and filmmaker, first visited Halifax in 1980 to teach at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and was struck by the city’s resemblance to both his Great Lakes port hometown of Erie, Penn., as well as the Port of Los Angeles. While he initially became interested in creating pieces tied to economic issues in the 1970s, it was in the ’80s, while documenting the fishing industry, that he became more interested in the global trading system and the role of the complex network of sea traffic in its expansion.

"It’s clear there has to be some rethinking; there’s something totally mad about this extended global supply chain," says Sekula via Skype from France.

"In my earlier work, Fish Story, I was interested in how this very simple innovation, the cargo container, made it possible to move factories worldwide, especially ones that involve labour-intensive work that doesn’t require a lot of hardware.

"For example, it’s a lot easier to move a shoe factory or a toy factory than it is a steel mill."

The Forgotten Space encompasses a wide scope, from the state of port communities in the Netherlands, where the global shipping industry was born centuries ago, to the philosophical outlook of the disenfranchised of California, whose jobs have seemingly dried up and blown away.

Sekula’s and Burch’s message is reinforced by artfully composed images from Austrian cinematographers Attila Boa and Wolfgang Thaler, contrasting lifeless ship decks with the endless expanse of the sea, showing workers living lives as compartmentalized as the goods they transport.

In the end, it’s the images that tell the story and invite the viewer to make the connections between history and the present day and what their role is in a system in danger of tipping further out of balance.

"Noel says this is a film that will have to be completed by other means — in other words, it will be completed by the audience," says Sekula. "We do have the sense of people becoming engaged with this oppressing social problem that isn’t usually presented in this way and crosses the boundaries of the compartmentalization of people’s thoughts.

"Maybe the best thing to hope for the film is that it will help us all to break out of the box, or rather this nest of boxes into which our social lives are being channelled."

Tickets for The Forgotten Space at Bus Stop Theatre are $7, $5 students and seniors, available at the door or through the HIFF website: halifaxindependentfilmmakersfestival.wordpress.com.